Faithful Followers

Saturday, February 22, 2014

“So, what will I be doing?” I inquired of the principal at the middle school; my new boss.

“You’ll be working with the lowest performing kids,” she answered simply.

I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but I didn’t want to sound like an idiot by asking her to expound. I figured I find out soon enough as the first day of school was just next week.

Here I am, 2 ½ years later and I now know what she meant by “lowest performing kids.” You see, this principal has a passion for those kids; the ones who fall through the cracks. She’s not cool with letting kids fail simply to teach them the lesson: If you don’t work hard, you’ll fail. She recognizes that there are some kids out there who couldn’t care less if they fail. The only problem they have with dropping out of school at age 16 is waiting until they’re 16. For too many kids, especially the ones I see from low socioeconomic areas, there has been no role model, no advocate for them. They haven’t been taught that there’s value in education.